


A Rush and a Push and the Land is Ours

by Aja



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: M/M, Seattle, live fast, sail slow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-24
Updated: 2017-04-24
Packaged: 2018-10-23 09:09:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10716432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aja/pseuds/Aja
Summary: Arthur changes from city to city, and Eames tries to keep up—until, one day, they end up in a place neither of them ever expected.





	A Rush and a Push and the Land is Ours

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pinkys_creature_feature](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinkys_creature_feature/gifts).
  * Inspired by [When a Bad String of Luck Suddenly Turns Good](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9706454) by [pinkys_creature_feature](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinkys_creature_feature/pseuds/pinkys_creature_feature). 



> Thanks to oceaxe for cheerleading and immaturation and EGT for the speedy beta-reads! No thanks to anyone for encouraging me to name this after a Smiths song. Thanks to Pinky for the inspiration—hope you enjoy!

Arthur could live like this, or this. — indysaur, “[Lives i’ve Pursued](http://archiveofourown.org/works/383481)”

 

 

It takes Eames a while to understand—and by ‘a while’ he means long enough that he’d be embarrassed were he dealing with anyone else but Arthur—that the person he’s privately, desperately in love with only exists in liminal spaces.

The Arthur he loves, the precision shot with the cutting sarcasm and perfectly precise diction in flawless grey business suits, with one hand permanently on a gun and the other, if he’s lucky, somewhere on Eames, is a countryless cipher who slips effortlessly from airport to airport, from hotel to hotel, from train to train and cab to cab, from dream to dream.

The first time they kiss, it’s because they’re on the roof of a skyscraper together after an extraction, overlooking a perfect replica of Shanghai while waiting for the kick, and the wind is whipping around the corner of the building and ruffling the sweaty mop of Arthur’s gelled hair—he’d rucked it up mowing down projections to get there—and Eames is staring at the soft fray of it when Arthur turns to him and says, smiling oddly, “Shanghai is never this vivid at night in reality. Too much light pollution. I’m always a little disappointed.” Then he pushes Eames against the railing and kisses him, and Eames thinks, careful, careful.

The rest of that week, they fuck prodigiously, but Arthur rarely leaves the hotel except on business, and Eames, flush with oxytocin and success, memorizes him that way, controlled and focused and wrapping his lust up tight each time he puts on one of his spotless suits. This is Arthur, he thinks, as Arthur stops in the doorway and looks him over with dark eyes before giving him a final nod on his way to the airport. The Arthur who’ll always be looking back at you over his shoulder, on his way to somewhere else.

For a long time, that’s enough for Eames, because it has to be, and because every time Arthur buttons himself up and walks away, Eames has a moment of reconciling himself to the possibility that this might be the last time. And then, when it isn’t, when Arthur returns to press him against the wall or slip an arm casually around his waist or get in a subtle grope when no one is looking, he gets to feel all over again that fresh sense of wonder at the unholy surprise of it, of Arthur wanting him.

It keeps not being the end. Arthur keeps returning and returning, and by the time Eames is booking full hotel suites without really thinking about it, he’s noticed that the Arthur he gets back is, occasionally, different.

In Paris one day, Eames looks around and realizes Arthur isn’t in the warehouse, that Arthur isn’t in the hotel either, that Arthur is, apparently, just  _out and about_. This phenomenon is so strange that he has to ask Arthur about it. Arthur only says, “Oh. I went to the street market on Rue Montorgueil,” as if that explains anything. In Paris Arthur wears light suits and flirts with all the waiters and tugs Eames into used bookstores and down narrow alleys just to see where they lead, and Eames is so mesmerized by it all he stops trying to make sense of it and just enjoys it. 

In New York, Arthur strolls idly through the Village with Eames and takes him to his favorite little Italian place, where the maitre d’ instantly remembers him even though his last visit was five years ago. He gets Eames to see pretentious movies at the Quad and the Metrograph and says things like “Want to do brunch in the Bowery tomorrow?” even though Eames has never known Arthur to voluntarily seek out real food before happy hour in his life. In New York, Arthur wears only dark suits with faint splashes of color. One night he lures Eames to a back corner of Birdland, where he sits, rapt, holding Eames’ hand and soaking in jazz, and he’s wearing a perfect navy Zegna with a  _fedora_ , and Eames realizes abruptly that this is Arthur attempting to _live_ someplace. 

In other cities, in other places, Arthur is just Arthur. He’s focused on the job at hand and he navigates around it, and Eames has gotten very good at slotting himself in-between Arthur and the moments where his attention wavers from the job just enough to be distracted. But in New York, in Paris, Arthur distracts himself, and the difference is so striking that once he’s seen it, Eames is perpetually attuned to the way Arthur moves from city to city—whether he’ll herd Eames back to their indifferent hotel room or pause and say, “There’s this clockmaker I passed on the way over. Wanna check it out?”

Eames comes to think of the cities where Arthur behaves this way as his anchor points. But more than that—he thinks that for Arthur, they’re places of possibility. In New York he’s polished and focused and a connoisseur. In Paris he’s relaxed and a little louche, a little ruffian—a little more inclined to be the one to have his way with Eames instead of feigning long-suffering while Eames manhandles him.

In Tel Aviv, he’s almost like a different person, strangely still inside and out, feeling his way through Old Jaffa with care and carefulness, exploring different neighborhoods and engaging in long, earnest conversations with shopkeepers and bartenders. It’s almost like he’s trying to figure out what sort of person he’d be if he were a person who lived in Tel Aviv; it’s as if he’s decided Tel Aviv is a piece of his puzzle but doesn’t know where it fits inside of himself yet.  

Eames doesn’t see what he sees in the city at all, especially since Arthur doesn’t particularly seem to be getting in touch with his Jewish heritage. Perhaps that would come later. Or perhaps Arthur is simply trying on a different city for once, even if it’s not a particularly vibrant one. Eames thinks about simply _asking_ him what he’s doing, but their relationship isn’t built on admissions that they confuse one another; it’s built on shared assumptions that turn out to be right, and discussions they avoid by silent mutual agreement, and sex, and shooting things. 

Arthur’s stillness in Tel Aviv discomfits him so much that he leaves Arthur to ramble on his own. It’s the first time since they started this that Eames has been the one with an itinerary taking him away from Arthur instead of the reverse, and as much as that fact startles him, it’s nothing compared to the way Arthur says, thoughtfully, “Okay. I’ll see you in Munich,” and pulls him in for a kiss that is slow and warm and just as still as everything else about him has been in this city.

Eames almost says something stupid, right then, but he realizes suddenly that he’s not sure who he’d be saying it to.

And so he leaves, and Arthur shows up in Munich tanned from Tel Aviv beaches and holding a pair of flip-flops with a gaudy skyline printed on each foot. “I got you a souvenir,” he says wryly, “since you liked it there so much.” Eames wears them for the rest of the week, and Arthur is himself again.

A week after that, they’re in Seoul, and Arthur says, “Hmm. Big Bang concert tonight,” and Eames laughs and says, “Seoul? Really?” before he can help himself, and then covers up his gaffe by mocking Arthur’s taste in K-pop.

He goes to the concert anyway, however, and his benevolence earns him a couple of gratuitous glances from Arthur, followed by a lingering kiss outside Olympic Park that turns into a flagrant display of PDA when he pulls Eames in and shoves his hands in Eames’ coat pockets, Bridget Jones-style. Someone snaps their picture. Eames takes a chance and laces his fingers through Arthur’s, and keeps them there as he drags Arthur back to the hotel suite. Arthur lets him, and later he rolls over in bed and draws the hand Eames had been holding down Eames’ chest. He looks at Eames, sweaty and sated and content. Eames looks back.

“I swear there’s a heart in there,” he says.

“I figured,” Arthur replies.

  
  
  


 

The first sign that something is different about the job they do on Bainbridge Island is that—well, for starters, it’s on Bainbridge Island, which Eames has to Google to find out that it’s a large island in the middle of the Puget Sound, a half-hour away from Seattle by ferry. Later Eames confirms that their extractor, Tate, picked up the job on a tip from Cobb, who still tries to keep his hand in the business even though no one in their right minds will work with him. He has a word with Cobb, then, about trying to send passive-aggressive messages through jobs he’s not a part of.

Initially, though, all he registers is the double take Arthur does.

“We’re extracting from the head of the Bainbridge City Council?” Arthur repeats, in a voice so baffled it instantly makes Eames suspicious of the job and Tate. “Really?”

Tate shrugs. “Money’s good and the job’s a quick in and out,” she says.

Arthur leans back in his chair. “Huh,” he says.

When Eames asks him if he has any suspicions about the job, though, Arthur is dismissive. “No,” he says, not bothering to look up from the act of booking their passage to SeaTac. “I just thought it was odd. Such a small town.”  Eames decides to let that pass.

The second sign that something is different about the job they do on Bainbridge Island is that they’re on different flights. The flight Arthur has booked for himself leaves a day before the one he’s booked for Eames. “I need to run some errands,” he says vaguely when Eames asks him about it, and Eames decides to let that pass as well.

What he finds when he arrives fresh off the ferry to the gravelly shores of Eagle Harbor is that Arthur is already there, just hanging out at the local pub on the waterfront, having an artisanal craft beer like he’s there every day, and wearing a—

“Arthur,” says Eames, swallowing. “What are you wearing?”

Arthur looks down at the forest-green hoodie he’s sporting. It’s zipped up so that the pattern of what appears to be sacks of yellow corn kernels is more easily visible across his chest. Across the top, Eames reads the words, “Modilly’s Feed n’ Seed.”

He stares.

Arthur shrugs. “It gets chilly here.”  

Eames continues to stare. Possibly even stranger than the fact that Arthur is wearing a hoodie that came from the local feed supply store is the fact that it looks as though the hoodie has been worn. Unlike Eames, who routinely fishes clothes and accessories out of Goodwill bins and Salvation Army dumpster dives, the idea of Arthur willingly foraging through a consignment shop looking for cast-off sweats is beyond any image of him he can comprehend. Additionally, his hair is ungelled. Perhaps, Eames thinks blankly, Arthur with loose curls is another byproduct of chilly weather.

“Darling,” he says, at a loss, “are you feeling alright?”

“Mm hmm?” Arthur says, finishing off his beer. “I’m great. You wanna head back to the hotel? I dropped my bags there but I put off making a reservation. There’s a little bed and breakfast up the street I thought we might check out.”

Eames nods, swallowing a thousand questions, and follows Arthur back up the hill from whence he came, past rows of suburbanized mom-and-pop stores and AirBNB bungalows overlooking the waterfront. On the way, they pass the Chamber of Commerce and the City Hall, and Eames is taking mental notes about logistics when he glances over at Arthur and sees his gaze fixed on something. Apparently the island is home to an upscale contemporary art museum, complete with gaudy signs announcing its recent win as one of America’s best small-town museums. It’s flagrantly touristy, but Eames’ interest is piqued. If Arthur is apparently using this island as one of his random anchor points, then obviously that will be a place he’ll want to come to.

He starts to say as much—might as well be proactive about showing Arthur he can be any number of selves around Eames, even a variant of co-op-frequenting Pacific Northwest hipster—when he looks back at Arthur again. This time, he’s quelled by the look in Arthur’s eyes. He’s still studying the museum. But it’s a faraway look, a strange, fond look.

Eames knows that look. It’s the look he gets whenever he goes home to Shropshire and discovers some idiot has painted over the town mural with an ad for Tesco. It’s nostalgia mixed with chagrin.

And suddenly he knows.

Arthur has _lived_ here.

He looks down at the frayed edges of Arthur’s hoodie. This is, he realizes as clarity washes over him, _Arthur's_ hoodie. Arthur came by himself a day early because he needed to come _home_. Arthur was freaked out by the idea of extracting from a city councilman because Arthur knows people on the city council. Arthur probably _grew up_ here.

Suddenly countless inconsequential comments Arthur has dropped here and there about his life make sense—comments Eames has hoarded in the hope that they might allow him just enough additional understanding of Arthur to keep their relationship going just a bit longer. Now, suddenly, a picture of Arthur in childhood emerges: Arthur as a sulky ‘90s kid living a stone’s throw away from the heart of grunge rock, trapped on an island too small for his ambitions yet too quirky not to fill him with affection. Arthur wearing hoodies and loose curls and probably waffling between excellent grades and constant disciplinary problems at the local high school—Eames will have to check up on that—and scheming of ways off the island in the middle of the sound.

Eames is overwhelmed by the possibility of it all, the knowledge this could bring him—the inroads into Arthur’s life and history he suddenly has access to, for the first time.

But Arthur... Arthur has yet to say a word to him about having any personal connection to the place.

Instead, when they reach the bed and breakfast, Arthur just says, “You wanna go in?” as though he’s a stranger here himself.

Eames nods and follows.

  
  
  
  
  


Arthur doesn’t give the game away. They send for their bags from the hotel and check into a cosy second-floor B & B suite bedecked in blue roses, and Arthur settles in and focuses on the job, on digging up research on the mark as though he’s not already familiar with the area.

The next morning, however, he wakes up early, says, “Breakfast?” and then beelines for the local diner without even the pretense of checking his phone for directions. There, he orders pancakes and sausages with barely a cursory glance at the menu; Eames suspects that’s mostly just to frown over any changes since his last visit.

Eames watches Arthur eat his lumberjack meal with a mix of fondness and consternation. He can’t even be affronted that Arthur has given himself away, because he really hasn’t; to anyone not as attuned to his behavior patterns as Eames, he could be any other Seattleite. To anyone not Eames, he could be just trying to fit in with the locals.

Still. It stings that Arthur is apparently not going to say anything to him. It’s stupid, Eames knows—isn’t this what he’s always told himself about Arthur? Not to let himself hope for commitment, for trust, for openness?

And yet when Eames thinks back through all the recent months of Arthur threading him through places he’s fond of, of showing him all these different sides of himself, it feels even more unfair. Arthur’s clearly not indifferent to Eames, he clearly _likes_ him.

But if Eames hasn’t earned his trust by now... well. Maybe there’s a reason for that.

So after breakfast, he tells Arthur he’s going to run to the store and then wander around for a bit. Arthur blinks and then says, “Sure. You wanna meet up with Tate later? I’m going to stay here and have a donut,” and looks with longing at the counter where a shelf full of pastries is beckoning.

Eames smiles at him, tells him to have all the donuts his heart desires. At the counter as he pays, he tells the waitress to bring the man in flannel all the donuts he requires. “Which one?” she says, staring at a diner full of men in flannel shirts. “The gorgeous one,” Eames says with a wink, sliding her a twenty.

He doesn’t go to the store.

Instead, he goes to the library, which is located just across the street from the outsized trio of high schools serving a town whose population is smaller than his entire county back home in England. But the school pride means it’s incredibly easy to find the yearbooks in the section dedicated to local history.

One school only opened recently, so that narrows it down. Eames starts with the public high school and goes for class of 2004, 2005; Arthur’s never given him a clear idea of how old he is, but from what Eames knows of Arthur and his years in the military, that seems about right.

He thinks unbidden of a young Arthur watching the twin towers fall from a dazed high school classroom and feels a sudden pang of useless protectiveness sweep over him. The books in his hands are slim, as of course they ought to be for a town of this size. If Arthur is in them, as Eames is now certain he is, he won’t be hard to find.

He takes them to a free carrel and thumbs the covers idly for a moment. Then he spares a look around him at the library. It’s clean, modern; some areas of it have clearly been recently remodeled, and there’s a sign in the lobby asking the entrant to pardon the mess in the children’s section. Not that Eames is familiar with American libraries, but it looks just like every other library to him. He wonders how differently Arthur would see it.

The 2005 yearbook theme is apparently designed around comic books. Eames snorts. That must have annoyed Arthur to no end. Then again, who knows—maybe Arthur had been a secret geek back in the day. He seems the type.

The wealth of things he doesn’t know about Arthur, starting with his bloody _name_ in these yearbooks, is suddenly overwhelming. Eames sits back, defeated.

He can’t do it. He can’t violate whatever thread of trust Arthur has extended to him over all these months by allowing him to see him in each one of these places where he becomes someone else.

Eames doesn’t know what any of it means—why Arthur changes so much from place to place to begin with or why he keeps inviting Eames in. But he knows by now that Arthur has hooks in parts of him Eames never knew had eyes, and where once Eames wouldn’t have thought twice about seizing a close-up look at anyone foolhardy enough to give him the opportunity, now he finds himself sickened by the image of Arthur’s horrified face if he knew what Eames is up to.

“You aren’t going to read them?”

On reflex, Eames tenses, caught out, and forces himself to turn to where Arthur is standing behind him.

“They ran out of donuts,” says Arthur.

Eames exhales. “Arthur,” he begins guiltily, and then stops, because Arthur doesn’t look angry. Arthur looks... thoughtful. And possibly a bit guilty himself. Eames is thrown by this. Arthur’s hands work ineffectually at his sides for another moment and then he drags a chair over and sits down next to him.

“I wasn’t trying to hide it from you, exactly,” Arthur says awkwardly, and Eames realizes that it’s true.

“You weren’t, were you,” he says.

Arthur frowns. “I want you to know about me,” he says. “About my life. Just—not while we’re on a job. I wasn’t... it didn’t feel right.”

“Darling,” Eames says, his voice dropping to something soft, “you don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to tell me. You don’t owe me anything.”

Arthur’s gaze on him sharpens. “Do you really think that?” he says.

Eames looks back and can’t think of a word to say for himself. Arthur’s expression turns exasperated, then fond, and Eames’ heart gives a lurch. “Come on,” Arthur says, and he takes Eames’ hand and tugs him to his feet.

“First,” he says, picking up the yearbooks, “you want the 2003 edition. I actually started early—my parents had me skip Kindergarten.”

“Ah,” says Eames, following Arthur to the stacks to return them. “And you rapidly caught up to the rest of the class.”

“Actually,” Arthur says, smiling a little, “I think I probably just got a lifelong superiority complex.” He shoots Eames a wink and re-shelves the books. Then he nods to a corner desk over by the information desk marked ‘loans and orders.’ “And that’s where I worked for a couple of years in high school. Filling out requests for new copies of James Patterson, things like that.”

“I can scarcely imagine,” Eames says, wowed, but Arthur is already moving back, further into the stacks.

“And this,” he says, walking to the far end of the building and entering a row of dust-covered, nearly empty shelves, “is where I had my first handjob.”

Eames’ initial reaction of shock is tempered by amusement, because of _course_ Arthur would be the sly kid who punctuates his nerdy library job by getting off in the stacks. He steps in, amazed as always at how pliant Arthur is, how he lets Eames grip his hips and reel him in. He doesn’t even look long-suffering at the moment. It occurs to Eames that maybe Arthur hasn’t looked long-suffering in a long time.

“If that’s an experience you’re dying to recreate, sweetheart,” he says into Arthur’s ear, “that can probably be arranged.”

Arthur huffs, and then slips his arms around Eames’ neck, shifting closer until they’re nose to nose, pressing Eames back against the wall shelf until Eames knows he’ll have lines of dust striping his shirt when he steps away again.

“This is just to show you,” Arthur murmurs, giving him a quick kiss, “you’re not the bad influence you think you are.”

“Oh, Arthur,” Eames says, tightening his arms around Arthur, “For you, I’m not a bad influence. I’m the _best_.”

They’re kissing, and it’s probably just this side of obscene, given how hard Eames is straining not to let go and grind against Arthur’s thighs, when someone nearby pointedly clears their throat. Eames’ eyes fly open to find Arthur frozen, a look of absolute mortification crossing his face before he swallows, steps away, and turns to the throat-clearer. An elderly woman pushing a book stand is emerging from a door Eames hadn’t even noticed, and she looks every bit the part of the proverbial dictatorial librarian—at least until she sees Arthur’s face, and then her face _melts_.

“Jesse?” she says. “Jesse, you stinker, come give me a hug!”

And Arthur, his cheeks flooded, says, “Hey, Ms. Ethel,” voice cracking like a pre-teen, and does.

  
  
  
  


 

After Eames has been introduced to the entire staff of the Bainbridge Public Library and everyone else within hearing distance as “Jesse’s partner,” invited to three different church potlucks, asked whether he’s met Jesse’s family, asked whether he’s met Jesse’s high school prom date, asked whether he’s seen the photos from Jesse’s cousin’s husband’s granddaughter’s baby shower, asked when he’s going to make Jesse an honest man, asked whether he’s seen The Bunny Costume Photo from the time Jesse was 14 and the library made him dress up to entertain kids at Easter, and then dragged to the library vaults and made to share highly sanitized stories of Arthur in adulthood while the oldest man Eames has ever seen finds that photo from a decrepit binder of library memorabilia, he and Arthur make their excuses and call an Uber.

He doesn’t say a word as Arthur stands next to him on the sidewalk with his hands shoved in his pockets, clearly wanting to die of embarrassment.

Finally, as the car pulls up, Arthur heaves a sigh and turns to him. “Spit it out,” he says.

And all Eames can really say is, “You look like a Jesse.”

Arthur says, “Oh, my god,” and gets into the car.

Eames starts to give the driver the name of the B & B, but Arthur rattles off a different address, and the driver dutifully heads to the opposite side of the island, new for Eames, while Eames looks out at the tall evergreens and blinding blue water that seems to peek out around every turn.

The house they pull up to is shingled in a fetching blue-grey with a tin roof to match. It’s small, smaller than almost any other house Eames has seen on the island; but it’s isolated, and from what Eames can tell opens onto a lovely back yard with a wrap-around deck and a stream emerging from the woods beyond. It’s halfway up a hillside, and behind them is the sound, clear and beckoning.

This being Arthur, Eames is expecting the open ceilings, the grey paint, and the minimalist light fixtures dangling from exposed timbers when he walks in. But he’s not expecting how light and cozy it all is, how the grey walls are accented with cream touches offsetting the pine floors and the beams overhead.  Sunlight streams through a wall of windows, but thick rugs huddle before a massive stone fireplace, and a small kitchen and woodburning stove open onto the living room. An equally massive couch, threadbare and covered with pillows, sits before the fire, just asking to be sunk into. Books line the corners of the room, stacked neatly in all directions. Eames looks around, drinking it in. Arthur _lives_ here, or has at some point.

“What do you think?” Arthur asks. Eames turns to find Arthur watching him intently, one hand still on the door. Eames goes to him and shuts it firmly behind him.

“I love it,” he says sincerely, crowding Arthur against the wall and kissing him.

Arthur kisses back urgently, getting one hand on Eames’ neck and another in his hair, before pulling back and saying with dark intent, “You’ll like the bed, too.”

Eames does.

  
  
  


 

After sex, Eames sprawls out on Arthur’s bed, a four-poster in a bedroom just big enough to house Arthur’s ridiculously floofy king mattress but small enough to make Eames feel delightfully like a stowaway on a cramped ship’s berth. Arthur, thoroughly mussed and beaded in sweat, is working his way down Eames’ chest, tonguing him, taking his time over each crevice and cranny of Eames’ body like someone who has forgotten all about the meeting they have with Tate in a few hours. Eames is more relaxed than he’s been in ages, and he’s vaguely aware that he should probably say something, but he’d rather just lie there and be with Arthur.

Eventually, Arthur looks up from where he’s nearly put Eames into a blissed-out trance and says, “Hey,” in that voice that tells Eames it’s time to shake himself out of his haze. He opens his eyes. Arthur crawls up to him and lays his head sweetly on Eames’ chest. “You have anything you want to ask me about?” he says. “About today. About me.”

Eames strokes his hair, thinks. “Why are we on this job, for starters?”

Arthur snorts. “I think Cobb sent us this job because he thinks I don’t go home enough. His way of trying to mother me from afar.” He rolls his eyes. “Next question.”

He leans into Eames’ touch and lets Eames sort himself and his thoughts. “I really meant it,” Eames says at last. “I want to know what you want to share. I don’t want to pry into your life.”

Arthur studies him. “And I’m telling you, you have a right to pry,” he says. “You have a right to know things about me if you want.”

Eames doesn’t know what to say to that.

“Eames,” Arthur says. “You know you’re not just...” Then he chews his lip and blurts, “I introduced people to you as my partner today,” he says. “I meant it.” Then he looks stricken. “I—maybe I shouldn’t have assumed that’s what you wanted.”

The haze is fully dissipated now. “Darling,” Eames says firmly, sliding to a sitting position and taking Arthur with him. “I want to be with you whenever you’ll have me, for as long as you’ll have me.” The worry slides so beautifully from Arthur’s face that Eames has to kiss him.

“This house,” Arthur says. “I didn’t grow up here. I grew up in a duplex on the other side of town. This belonged to an aunt. I bought it from her when she moved to Portland.” He smiles. “It mostly just sits here but I wanted it to stay in the family.”

“It’s lovely, Arthur,” Eames says. He takes a breath. “Are your parents...?”

“Dad died of cancer when I was thirteen,” Arthur answers briefly. “I was an angry kid. Mom was depressed. She wound up...” He trails off.

Eames kisses him, lets Arthur deepen the kiss, holds him for as long as he wants. When Arthur finally pulls away, his cheeks are flushed, but he holds Eames’ gaze.

“I don’t want to stop dreaming,” he says. “I’m not planning on quitting dreamshare any time soon.”

“You just want to know that you could have a life,” Eames says. “Somewhere. Maybe here. Maybe somewhere else.”

Arthur shakes his head. “No,” he says. “You dolt.”

“But you... you explore these cities, as though you’re testing them out,” Eames says, baffled. “Testing out who you could be.”

“I’m testing them, sure,” Arthur says. “But I want to know that I could have a life _with you_ , Eames.”

Eames stares at him.

“Maybe that’s how it started,” Arthur says. “But it’s been months since I wanted to explore a city without you. I have to know how you like a city or else why even bother?” He laughs. “And you’re never the same in any place, you’re so difficult to get a handle on. I was so _sure_ you’d love Seoul—”

He breaks off, pouting, and Eames says, sputtering, “Darling, I love you in any city you put me in. That’s all that matters,” and it’s not until Arthur’s eyes widen that Eames realizes what he’s just said and has to cut Arthur’s reply short with a kiss.

“I have to say,” he murmurs when he’s kissed Arthur back against the sea of pillows, “Bainbridge Island is a favorite destination spot for me at the moment.”

Arthur huffs. “Please,” he says. “This place doesn’t even have decent wi-fi.”  

Eames arches against him and turns his retort into a gasp. “Baby, you’re the only connection I need.”

" _No_ ,” Arthur says, but he pulls Eames down and stretches out beneath him, letting Eames whisper stupid declarations and even stupider promises in his ear. 

In the end, they’re not that stupid after all.


End file.
